Category: Language

Online sign language translator

By Simon

There are many sites that translate between different languages, but a site I found today called Sign Translate is the first one I’ve seen that translates between English and sign language.

The site is intended for health professionals working in Britain’s NHS (National Health Service) and provides translations from English to and from British Sign Language (BSL), and also between English and Arabic, Bengali, French, Gujarati, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu. The BSL translations are displayed as videos, while translations in the others languages are available as text and audio.

The system does not in fact translate anything you say to it; instead it is programed with a set of typical questions and answers used in medical situations with versions of these in BSL and the other languages. Online BSL interpretation by real interpreters using webcams is also available.

This kind of system could be useful in other places such as hotels, police stations, banks, etc.

Have you come across any similar systems?

Languages Quick Fix

By Simon

Languages Quick Fix is a very useful site I discovered today. It includes words, phrases, and idioms in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and German, plus a basic introduction to each language. There are recordings of the words, phrases, and idioms in all the languages – in the case of Chinese, the recordings are in Mandarin, Shanghainese and Cantonese. There are also links to news stories, dictionaries, and Chinese paintings (in the Learn Chinese – One At a Time section).

Another useful site I came across today is SmallMarble, a multilingual phrase book to which anyone can contribute. At the moment it has Spanish translations of most of the phrases, but few translations in other languages.

Word of the day – pigan

By Simon

Pigan, verb = to being to rain / to start raining

Etymology: pigan comes from pig, beak, spout, to interfere

Example of usage:
Mae hi’n pigan = Mae hi’n dechrau bwrw glaw = It’s starting to rain

Related word:
piglaw – heavy rain, drizzle

I came across this word the other day while searching for another word in my Welsh dictionary and it just appealed to me. I don’t think it’s a very common word as I’ve never heard it or seen it being used.

In Chinese you can express the same idea using the particle le:

下雨 (xiàyǔ) = it’s raining, 下雨了 (xiàyǔ le) it’s just started raining

Do other languages have words with the same or a similar meaning?

Birdsong and language

By Simon

In the Indian state of Kerala, the Brahmin priests apparently chant their prayers in something that sounds utterly unlike language but quite like birdsong, according to a post on this blog. The prayers have been passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years and might even pre-date language, according to this article.

Birdsong is perhaps the nearest thing to human language and music in non-human creatures. Maybe language and/or music first developed partly as a result of our distant ancestors imitating the birds.

Language learning – finding that elusive catalyst

By Simon

Guest post by Rajul Chande

Having found it so tough to learn languages myself, I’ve always been fascinated by how others manage to do it. So I decided to interview people who have learned languages to find those seductive but elusive “short cuts”, if they exist at all!

This project is now taking shape as a book which I’m co-authoring, aiming to “model” useful language learning habits and methods from real case studies.

We’re hoping that the tips from these “language learner biographies” will inspire more people to take on the challenge of learning languages, a challenge supported in such encyclopaedic depth by the Omniglot website.

I remember at school how my motivation was driven by a passion for French cinema.
This taught me about finding deep-seated motivation through something you love doing anyway, where the language offers a gateway to further your enjoyment.

And as I currently scramble along trying to improve my Italian (love of the country), Spanish (love of Latin music) and German (love of my girlfriend!), I’m doing my best to keep this in mind, though progress is nowhere near as smooth as I’d like.

I’m in awe of people like Simon who traverse the boundaries of different language families so courageously.

I hope that as a fellow languages enthusiast reading this you might be tempted to contribute your own “linguistic biography” to the book. Please email me via the contact form at www.getfluentfast.com to receive a short questionnaire.

You might even see your language learning exploits in print when the book is published later this year.

Language quiz

By Simon

This is a song that I learnt this week at one of the choirs I go to. Does anyone know what language it’s in and what it means? We were told that it’s a “gypsy song from Czechoslovakia” and that it’s a counting song. The words look like a mixture of Romany and Spanish – possibly Caló.

Dui, duj, duj, dui desu duj,
Te comida, te comida,
Par no muj

O kalo muj na kamar,
Dere kostat kikana,
Saj Iago, say Iago,
Romnake

I don’t know the answers this time. All I’ve been able to find out is that there are recordings of the song on some albums of Hungarian gypsy songs, or at least a song with the same first line, and that the final word, Romnake, appears to be associated with the Hungarian-Carpathian gypsies.

Sing that to me

By Simon

Researchers in France have discovered that people tend to find foreign words easier to remember if those words are sung rather than spoken according to an article I found yesterday.

The researchers repeatedly played a recording of number of made-up words made using a speech synthesiser to a group people. Then they played the words again along with other words and asked the people say which of the words were on the first recording. When the first recording was made using ordinary speech, the participants did very poorly. However after listening to a recording of the words being sung, the participants could recall two thirds of them.

The conclusion was that you tend to engage emotionally with words when they’re sung, and that the singing can help you to identify which syllabic sounds tend to come together. The researchers commented that “Learning a foreign language, especially in the first learning phase wherein one needs to segment new words, may largely benefit from the motivational and structuring properties of music in song.”

Verbotomy

By Simon

Verbotomy is an interesting site I came across the over day where you’re challenged to come up with words to fit the definitions that are published daily. The definitions usually describe an every day situation and are accompanied by a cartoon. Once you join the site, you can suggest words that match the definitions, and comment and/or vote on the words created by others. The word with the most votes wins.

Today’s definition is:

DEFINITION: n., The shock and embarrassment felt after innocently implying that you are much younger, only to discover that everyone actually knows how old you really are. v. intr., To be embarrassed when caught lying about your age.

Do you know of any similar sites for other languages?